Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to attribute a comment made about Ramseur. HobbsDailyReport.com originally attributed that comment to Foard’s athletic director rather than the school principal.
By CHRIS HOBBS
HobbsDailyReport.com
NEWTON – Michael Ramseur — an assistant at Fred T Foard High who was a football star at Maiden and signed with North Carolina during his playing career — is the Tigers’ next varsity head football coach.
RAMSEUR
Finalizing Ramseur as the replacement for Ryan Gettys, who resigned after last season and his second tenure as Foard head coach, was confirmed on Tuesday by Foard athletic director Samy Shreitah.
“Coach Ram is eager to get started and implement his offseason accountability program right away,” Foard principal Stephen Westmoreland said in an afternoon e-mail from Shreitah. “His strong character and vision for our football family has us very excited!”
Foard plans a Feb. 7 meeting (7:30 p.m.) at the school media center for the community to meet with Ramseur, who played college football at UNC and Mars Hill after a standout career at Maiden.
Ramseur’s coaching career includes stints as running backs coach at Lenoir-Rhyne University, running back coaches and run game coordinator a Hampton University (Va.), four years in various key roles at Winston-Salem State and on staff at Mars Hill from 2006-09.
He is a 1988 Mars Hill graduate who worked in 1988-89 as a graduate assistant at LRU. He also taught and coached at the high school level at Bunker and St. Stephens.
As a star at Maiden, Ramseur earned a spot on the North Carolina Shrine Bowl team.
He becomes the 11th head football coach at Foard, dating back to the late 1970s, and Gettys held the position twice (for eight years plus the last three).
The other hires came after Dick Foster left Foard as head coach after the 1978 season. The longest-tenured Foard coaches since Foster’s nine seasons there are six by Tony Paroli and eight by Gettys in his first tenure.
Allen Gorry, Tom Harper and Derrick Minor (now head coach at East Burke) join Gettys as other head coaches for three-year periods.
Foard has lost its last 14 games, including all nine last season when it came off a 1-5 record that included opening a COVID-shortened season with a victory over Patton. Last year’s team returned 10 starters on offense and six on defense.
The Tigers will field their 64th varsity football season and pursue their 16th winning seasons. They have posted losing records in 43 years and fielded five .500 teams.
Foard’s football mark includes seven winless seasons – 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1989, 2010 and 2021 – and the Tigers have reached the postseason 13 times (last bid in 2018).
The Tigers won their only league titles in the early 1980s – outright (1983) and shares (1981, 1982) — under Foster on run-oriented teams led by running back Marshall Shuford.
RAMSEUR’S BIO AT LRU: https://lrbears.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/micheal-ramseur/287
